Cranes by Night
by Owai
Summary: Nestled between mountain, myth, and spirit is the house of Hyuuga—and Uchiha Sasuke, who has just been promised to its heir. Yet as the designs of men ebb and flow, Fate abides in an unalterable, ceaseless current unaffected by the desires of men. Sasunej
1. Chapter 1

**Title;** Cranes by Night  
_**Chapter 1**_  
**Rated;** PG [this chapter  
**Summary;** Nestled between mountains, myths, and spirits is the house of Hyuuga—and Uchiha Sasuke, who has just been promised to its heir. Yet as the designs of men ebb and flow, Fate abides in an unalterable, ceaseless current unaffected by the desires of men.  
**Author's Note;** AU, SasuNejiSasu. For Laur's (late) birthday and probably Christmas as well. Further comments at the end.  


  
---  
Au nowa wakari no hajimari.  
_To meet is the beginning of parting._  
- Japanese Proverb  
---

The floor was cold this time of night, this time of year. Colder in the darker extremities of the house—rooms which hadn't been open since early autumn and which still retained the season's crisp scent, but changed. It was the scent one would expect to find in an old growth forest after all the trees had died and snow had covered the land. A scent that was dead, but clean. Clean and dead.

"Okaeri-nasai, Otou-san."

Uchiha Sasuke was well acquainted with this floor. As a child he had been scolded for walking on these same tatami with slippers, for accidentally slicing the woven strands with a kunai, for dripping blood near the entrance. It was one of his father's rooms, but not the greatest of those. His father had chosen this room for him as carefully as he chose everything else. A secondhand room for a second son.

As Sasuke pressed his forehead to the cool matting, he decided not to think about it, and instead concentrated on the sound of his own breathing.

"Your mother tells me that you have completed your training with Kakashi. You returned yesterday, is that right?"

His father always had a way of talking that made Sasuke feel, as cliché as it was, small. At the same time, the fact that his father was speaking to him at all sent Sasuke's heart thudding in his chest. It caused a hundred feathers to burst in his ribcage and wing his hope to blossom warm in his chest. It fluttered to perch, ready in his throat.

"Yes, Otou-san," Sasuke said softly, not daring to lift his eyes above the hem of his father's riding gear. Respect stayed his gaze, and against the dark background, Sasuke could see the white puffs of his breath scatter before his father's figure like a thousand soldiers that fled in his presence. "We've finished everything that Kakashi-sensei—"

A sudden screech of movement had Sasuke's voice shudder to a sudden halt, and his eyes snapped back to the floor as his father heaved himself from the chair he'd been sitting in—the only one in the house, it had been brought here for just this purpose—and made a rough circle around the room. Sasuke watched the line of his shadow bend and twist out of the corner of his eye. Mutated.

"It was _you_ that denied further training, was it not?" His father's voice shuddered in the small room, but it was carefully in check. A measured explosion.

Sasuke drew in a breath. "He said himself that he no longer has anything to teach me. I came back because I wanted to show—"

"Then show me."

There was the long, pinched harmony of metal on metal, and Sasuke presently became aware of his father's drawn sword. Every hair on his neck stood on end, as if each had been tipped with steel and was straining toward the magnetic pole of the singing weapon. The young Uchiha's shoulders shook with a faint tremor.

"Show me," his father commanded again.

Sasuke slowly lifted his forehead from where it had been resting on his fingers against the ground. He looked up into the shadows of his father's face—a man's face, thick with lines of age and the hardness of intelligence. The corners of Uchiha Fugaku's mouth dipped in a perpetual frown, and his eyes were a hard, dark obsidian like Sasuke's own. But in that face lay all that Sasuke had ever wished to possess, to corrupt in the only way that pride in a son could do. He would see his father's face shine with satisfaction in the way it did for his brother.

His brother—why was it not Itachi that Sasuke was fighting now?

But there was no time to think on the matter; he would not keep his father waiting. Taking a deep breath, Sasuke mentally prepared himself for the task he alone had placed on a pedestal. Somehow proving himself to his father had become little less than an all encompassing obsession.

He was up in the shadow of a second, the balls of his feet hitting the tatami soundlessly as he gained his balance, effortless as a blacksmith turned his hand to the forge. With the agile grace of a cat, Sasuke caught the sword that his father tossed him, the sharp blade glinting in the light that flickered out from the various lanterns and candles placed throughout the room. This was no mere child's play; the blade of this sword would cut the finest hair on a man's head.

Hunching his shoulders forward slightly, Sasuke slid his feet into a wider stance as his father circled the room once more. Circled him. Assessing.

And then with a groan of leather and grate of metal, his father lowered himself into the chair again. Sat poised just on its edge, the tang of his sword balanced on the arm of the Western structure.

"Come," he said.

Astonished by is father's behavior, Sasuke felt his cheeks flush in heated shame. The sudden shock of a strange betrayal splashed over him like cold water. And just like water, Sasuke forced himself to shake it off, pushing himself into action. Action, if there was no room for thought.

If his father did not believe him to be capable, he would prove that he was by force.

Sasuke's first strike came quick and direct; the arch of his blade made a visible crescent in the dimness of the room as he twisted the razor edge toward one of the many openings that was provided by his father's position. His father's sword was held loosely in his right hand, Sasuke had struck at the left arm—an awkward position for a man to defend against without moving his entire body to face his opponent. But when the whisper of air gasped itself into silence, it was metal that Sasuke's blade bit into and not the rough armor on his father's arm. Not even the old, unpolished wood of the chair as his father moved.

He was almost too shocked to go on, his father's movements had been so swift. But Sasuke was ever-diligent and struck again and again and again—the final twist of his arms sent forth a jab that forced his father's blade out in a circling serpentine like move that thrust Sasuke so far back he thought he was going to fall right into the shogi and punch through into the next room.

When he looked up, his father's eyes shone with the faintest shimmer of red. The smallest glimpse of the demon inside, and the first time Sasuke had seen it outside of spars between his father and brother.

There wasn't a moment's hesitation as he ran the few steps back to the center of the room, blade slung downward in a shallow bow. As the speed of his attack increased so did the speed and method of his perception. Everything seemed to slow down as his concentration pinned itself on each aspect of the room, each angle of his father's body, his father's chair, his father's weapon. This time, Sasuke was able to see his father's sword rise up to meet his own.

But it wasn't Fugaku's blade that Sasuke was aiming for.

The understructure of the chair shattered as the heavy steel of Sasuke's sword bit through it. Wood splintered and crumpled as the chair tipped forward and folded in on itself itself, forcing Fugaku to his feet and on the defensive as Sasuke spun around and threw his sword in an undercurrent to clang against his father's in parry. For the first time in his experience, there was a look of shock on his father's face. It drew the lines there thin and tight, pushed Fugaku's eyes wider before it relented and was once again tamed by the Uchiha clan head's resolve and experience.

They were fighting in earnest now, his father attacking, forcing Sasuke to step back as the long sliver of his blade swung closer and closer to the unguarded skin of Sasuke's neck. Backed up against the inner wall, Sasuke dodged a heavy swipe that sliced the thin rice paper in half and shredded the wooden supports between. He danced his way out of the corner of the room and thrust his sword full-bodied toward the triangle created by his father's elbow and body.

Sasuke's sword was deflected and expertly engaged again, forcing Sasuke back against the broken inner wall. He could feel the warmer air from the inner house melt through the wounds in the paper, and for an instant, his mind divided, slipped back toward childhood and the warm, dry heat of his careless youth during winters past in this house. Desperate for clarity, Sasuke thrust himself up against the cold outer wall.

The light from the windows lit his father's sword as it came down and sliced through the cord holding the window shade in place. As the room slipped into partial darkness, Sasuke slapped a hand over his wounded cheek and felt the sting of his sweat piercing the wound.

"Is this all you've learned?"

Sasuke's expression trembled and split open just like the short, shallow gash in his cheek. His heart beat furiously as his resolve fought against his father's criticizing gaze, and in a matter of moments he had cut the thongs of the two remaining windows and had thrust the room into a shaky, candlelit half-darkness.

The young Uchiha saw his father's eyes flicker in understanding. It was that sudden injection of pride that made him quick and agile, had him sweeping in from the side, raising his arms above his head, the flames of each candle flattening to follow his movement as he twisted—

And found himself face first on the floor, the edge of his sword dangerously close to his unmarked cheek. A bare, but no less heavy foot was pressed between his shoulder blades.

Sasuke hadn't even seen his father move to react, it had been that swift. Whatever precognitive accuracy adrenaline had given his sight had fled at the first sign of his unworthiness.

As the stinging rush of failure made its way through his limbs, Sasuke felt his father's foot disappear from his back, and heard more than saw the rustle of his father's clothing as he bent to retrieve the fallen sword. The dull click of metal against wood murmured in the still air as Sasuke's breaths burst painfully from his lungs.

"You should have stayed with Kakashi," his father said, voice sounding above all things, disappointed.

Sasuke couldn't make himself say anything. He couldn't even force his eyes to open.

He heard Fugaku move toward the door, the sharp sound of his sword slipping back into its sheath defining the man's progress. Sasuke took a breath so painful that he thought for a moment that his father had managed a deeper, meaner cut—but there was no wound in his chest to speak of, only the bitter taste of defeat.

"You will be marrying the Hyuuga heiress," his father said, pausing by the door. "Prepare to set out at first light."

It was almost like he had fallen twice.

Sasuke didn't care to think about whether or not his defeat at his father's hands had led to his current situation—brooding on the way things were was an unfortunate pastime of his that was neither fruitful nor productive to his mental state. As expected, he thought about it anyway.

"It wasn't," his mother told him that night as she pushed a plate of steaming dumplings under his nose. "I wish he'd chosen a different way to tell you, but he just came back from that house and had decided. He really is proud of you, Sasuke-chan."

She said this so often that occasionally, Sasuke was inclined to believe it just for the sake of swimming with the stream instead of against it. The fact that she was his mother made it all the more difficult to hold the idea of her delusion in his mind—certainly she wouldn't lie to him. Yet he had seen the look in his father's eyes.

Sullenly, Sasuke picked at the dumplings. His stomach gave a cruel growl—ravenous traitor that it was—and yet Sasuke couldn't stomach the thought of force-feeding himself when nothing looked appetizing.

"Why do you want me to get married!" he finally burst out, the exclamation far too volatile to be a mere question. His mother didn't look surprised; she'd dealt with this kind of behavior from him for years, and the calmness in her expression was already serving to soothe Sasuke's flayed nerves.

"I think it would be good for you," his mother replied, dark eyes shining steadily, as if from an eternal fire.

It wasn't _For the sake of the clan_, not _It's what expected of young men_, no mention of alliance by partnership. She always had to make it personal. But for once, Sasuke wished she hadn't made it about him. Being a tool would have made swallowing this much less bitter to taste. At least then he would have felt his feelings were justified.

Sasuke tore into a dumpling, chewing haltingly for a few moments until there was nothing left to chew but the enamel of his own teeth. Perhaps if he bit into his tongue, his blood would wash this acrid taste out of his mouth—but he couldn't force himself to do it. Instead, he took another bite. A bite more regulated this time, a restrained effort for his mother, who had come around the table and begun to clean the cut on his cheek.

"I want you to be careful with the Hyuuga, Sasuke-chan," she said, voice not nearly as foreboding as her words. "They're different from us. It's probably been a long time since they've had an outsider stay among them."

"Tch," Sasuke grunted around his food, flushing as his mother's careful movements stopped. For a moment, he'd almost forgotten who he was speaking to. He swallowed and took in the fine, familiar features of his mother's face.

"You don't have to worry about me, 'Kaa-san," he said. It was still a bit acidic.

"Of course I do. I'm your mother."

Sasuke grunted.

"We're not giving you away, Sasuke-chan. You'll still belong to me, but something else as well. Something bigger. Try to understand that."

He tried, but when dawn finally came, Sasuke felt no better for it. He ate the breakfast of grilled fish and rice that his mother made and gathered only the things that would be essential to his journey into the mountains, for the Hyuuga lived outside the city, on the outskirts of Konoha. When everything had been packed and strapped to his horse, Sasuke returned inside to farewell his parents and brother.

His mother and father came to the door as he was ascending the steps, each dressed in attire of downplayed colors in accordance to the solemn occasion. Usually printed in red and white, the Uchiha clan's fan insignia looked strange when colored in grays, and as Sasuke bowed and pressed his forehead to the floor in honor of his mother and father, he found himself thinking of ashes, the only product of the raging fires of his clan.

"Where's Itachi?" he asked finally, straightening as his mother broke her position and came to adjust his riding clothes. She was fussing and Sasuke could tell that her movements were only to hold together her calm façade.

"Itachi-kun…" Mikoto said with a long-suffering sigh, as if saying Itachi's name drained her in a way that only a mother could endure, "he rode out the same time you did with Kakashi. He's not back yet."

Sasuke didn't say anything, but pushed the familiar sensation of disappointment down into the bottom of his stomach (where it belonged), and turned to his father. He narrowly caught the fleeting glance exchanged by his parents, but was unable to dwell on it as his father looked at him full in the face.

"Otou-san…" he started, voice nearly a whisper. Printed in those words, Sasuke knew, was the sound of _Think well of me, Father_, hidden much like the sound of birds behind a fall of rain.

Fugaku grunted and clasped a hand on Sasuke's shoulder. It was tight and strong, and despite his prior failures, Sasuke felt the warm sensation of pride ebbing through him.

"It'll rain," was all his father said.

"Sasuke-chan, take this." His mother was behind him again, and when Sasuke turned around, it was to find that he was face to face with a necklace that he'd only seen, but never touched.

It had been in his family for years—was rumored to be older than the Uchiha themselves, though the tales of the object that he'd heard as a child had never specified when it was created, only that it had belonged to the Gods.

Which was a little ridiculous, now that Sasuke could examine it more closely.

The necklace was rather plain, but it was an item that any Uchiha would have recognized. Upon closer inspection, it was elegant in its simplicity. When strung around a woman's neck, the thin chain (clearly crafted in a manner unknown to present day marksmanship—at least none that Sasuke had ever seen) would lay as smooth as a fine ribbon of silk against the hilt of an old sword—and bring to its wearer the same kind of effortless beauty. Strung on the chain was a single obsidian jewel that glinted iridescent in the light and was smooth to the touch. Its head was rounded perfectly and the tail came to a point that perhaps was sharp once, but which had been worn dull over the years, no longer dangerous. It was the shape that every Uchiha knew well. The tomoe.

"Give it to your future wife," Mikoto said, motioning Sasuke forward so she could string the necklace around his neck. "For now, wear it for safekeeping. The magatama will protect you." She kissed his forehead.

Sasuke mounted his horse, a dark beast that calmed under his fingertips but was unnecessarily violent with everyone else who tried to handle her, and hid the necklace beneath his shirt. It seemed to burn against his skin for a moment before a dull heat began to emanate from the head. Comforting, but in the same way that a hired mercenary with a large sword was: powerful, but toeing the edge of betrayal.

He rode out with his parents watching. As he rounded the crest of a hill, he turned and watched the house disappear behind the horizon, the last hints of a trailing smoke breathing itself toward the sky.

When Sasuke reached the central hub of the city, he met up with a man that his father had hired to guide him the rest of the way to the Hyuuga compound. Despite having been there days before, Fugaku trusted neither his own map drawing skills nor Sasuke's familiarity with that side of the country; he had paid his hired man three pieces of gold, and had given Sasuke three more to bestow once they had arrived safely.

The guide was a short, uncomfortable looking man who was perhaps in his mid-fifties, but whose life had clearly seen enough trials to age him further. His wrinkles had wrinkles, as far as Sasuke could tell, and his eyes were a rheumy blue. When he spoke, his lips curled around his teeth as if to make sure they hadn't fallen out in the process, and Sasuke found it incredibly difficult to want to pay attention to him.

This problem of his attention wandering, Sasuke suspected, was nature's way of protecting him from the senseless drabble that poured from this man's mouth hourly.

He spoke of everything from his dead wife and children to the Emperor's arthritis, and didn't stop for the entirety of their trip. When it finally began to rain, Sasuke found himself relieved despite the cold chill that crept deep into his bones—if only because the sound drowned out the murmur of his guide's storytelling.

Near dusk, the guide's pony—ancient and wrinkled as he was—pulled to a halt in front of a torii lined with the dark figures of still birds, their sharply curved beaks dripping with water. Through the torii lay a road that wound its way partially up the mountainside, stopping only at the foot of a silent mighty house that seemed to be glowing dimly in the half-light.

"As far as I'll go, boy. Hyuuga's right up there, she is," Sasuke's guide said, glancing around nervously before he looked from Sasuke to the money purse that was tied at the Uchiha's hip.

For a moment, Sasuke studied the structure in the distance—more of a complex, really—and ignored his companion, who had lapsed into silence for the first time since they'd begun their journey together. When Sasuke looked at the man, he realized he was no longer staring at the second half of his income, but had fixed his shrouded eyes on the birds of prey that lined the torii gateway. Even in the dim lighting, Sasuke could see their dappled feathers, the soft yellow, the dark brown. Falcons, each, their beady eyes fixed on Sasuke's dripping figure.

"Tch…fine," he said, dragging his eyes casually back to the guide's face. Despite being unsettled by the falcons—five leering from the torii, at least—he gave no sign of it in his manner. Sasuke's movements were smooth when he reached into his bag and produced the guide's money.

Once the gold was in his hands, the little man kissed it fiercely, taking one piece between his teeth to bite down so hard that Sasuke thought what remained of the enamel might break. Then the shrewd little face pulled into a thousand wrinkles, and with a start, Sasuke realized that the man was smiling.

"Be glad! Be glad boy, that Amaterasu looks more kindly on outsiders than she does her children! You'll be all right, for awhile at least!" Here, he gave a gravelly chuckle, "Heh heh…lots of spirits in those hills."

With nothing more than a disapproving sneer, Sasuke urged his mare through the archway, eyes avoiding both the man and the birds, though he could feel the eyes of each burning their way into his shoulders. It wasn't in his nature to fear superstitions and murmurs of ghosts; legend was merely legend, and Sasuke would believe what he'd seen. Sometimes not even that.

As the house drew closer, white-walled with deep brown wood sets and a dark, traditional roof that curved back up toward the sky at its edges, Sasuke dismounted and walked his horse around the back of the silent building. He had never seen a construction glow quite like this one did, though perhaps it was the dark deepness of the mountains behind that provided such an illusion. In any case, the rain was coming harder than ever. His horse needed to be brushed and fed, and Sasuke was cold and fatigued from riding all day.

He was about to call out for assistance—annoyance that he hadn't already been greeted pricking at the edges of his fingertips—when he turned a corner and nearly ran into a form dressed in a plain kimono of pale gray. Her figure was obscured for a moment by the water dripping from her night black umbrella in addition to the rain, and for a moment Sasuke's mind forced a recollection of those words his guide had spoken. _Lots of spirits in those hills._

Movement, however, broke that illusion.

"Uchiha Sasuke-san?" the petite figure said demurely, her umbrella tipping _just so_ in a way that made Sasuke unable to see her face. He took a step forward, fingertips frozen around the leather of his horse's reigns, dashed cold by the falling droplets.

Carefully, he answered. "Yes."

"Please follow me. Leave the horse; she will be collected."

Then, without waiting for any kind of protest or agreement from him, the girl parted the rain with her umbrella and ascended the stairs of the veranda. Her muddy geta and umbrella were abandoned on a mat meant specifically for that purpose, and Sasuke also disposed of his shoes there before following her. His socks left wet imprints on the wood, but less and less as they continued to walk further around the house. To an exhausted Sasuke, this felt like miles. In reality, they were walking for less than five minutes.

When the two paused, the Hyuuga and Sasuke (for he knew almost instinctively that this girl was a Hyuuga, though he had never seen her face nor the face of any other from this family), it was before a sliding door that looked exactly like the others that they had passed. Had she not known this house very well, Sasuke's guide may not have been able to tell the difference between the wall and the door—Sasuke certainly couldn't, not until she opened it. And when she did, he was met with a rush of warm, sweet smelling air that drew him in along after her, no questions asked.

"Please make yourself comfortable, Sasuke-san," the Hyuuga girl said, finally turning to him. Her face was pretty, but not beautiful—round and pale, it was framed by dark hair on each side, her bangs falling neatly over her eyebrows. The depths of her grey eyes swirled like smoke. "I'm sure you'll want to change before dinner. You'll be eating with Hinata-sama tonight."

She left.

Sasuke forced himself to look around the room that had been laid out for him. It was floored in tatami and was very plain; the only decorations on the walls were scrolls lined with dark, elegant calligraphy. Sasuke read the one nearest to the door: _Ue niwa ue ga aru_. Superiors have others above them.

When his eyes had finally darted over the light, low table against the wall, the fresh flowers that graced it in true ikebana fashion, the folded futon in the corner, Sasuke finally allowed himself to drift into the back portion of the room. Closed off by sliding shoji, it was equipped with a desk which had already been set up with a steaming basin of water and several towels. Leaning over the desk, his hands gripping the wood on either side, Sasuke stared at his trembling reflection in the upset water. He was gripping the desk so hard it was shaking.

"Che…" he gritted out between clenched teeth. All this time spent trying to do as his father wished…only to be bartered off to another family because he couldn't please him.

He pushed suddenly and violently against the desk, causing a rain of water to fall from his hair and clothes and bead on the polished surface of the wood. When his muscles finally unclenched, Sasuke felt the chain around his neck slide slightly as the magatama slipped from beneath his shirt and dangled over the steaming water.

Right. He had to do this.

With the water and sliver of soap that had been provided, Sasuke quickly cleaned himself, changed into dry clothes, and slid open the inner shoji only to find himself faced once again with the same girl that had met him outside. Her placid expression remained unchanged, but despite her innocent features, there seemed something…indefinably wrong about her that Sasuke couldn't name.

Placing the feeling aside, but not discounting it, Sasuke followed the Hyuuga girl down a long hall that was lit mostly by the light flooding in through the rice paper boundaries of the interior rooms. The entire house seemed to be constructed of shoji, save for the outer walls and stabilizing pillars. Sasuke, who had never really noticed the value of privacy until now, was slightly disconcerted.

His guide led him to yet another door, this time reinforced with a wood paneling from behind and flanked by two large ornate vases of astonishing color and design. When the Hyuuga girl kneeled by the door and tapped gently on the wooden frame, sliding it open an inch, Sasuke remained standing. As curious as he may have been, he made no attempt to look inside—that would come as the forces in his life demanded. Piece by piece.

"Uchiha Sasuke-san to dine with you, Hinata-sama." She bowed her head, as if the woman waiting inside could see, and then rose to her feet, offering Sasuke neither glance nor consolation before she followed the hallway back to wherever she'd come from.

Sasuke looked at the door, and that familiar sense of bitter rage came back to him as heavy and potent as a rainstorm after a drought. In a moment it was mastered, and presently he slid open the door.

The room behind the fortified screen was lit with lanterns that hung a yellow glow throughout the room and made the place seem smaller than it actually was. Whoever had orchestrated the room had done well—despite its grandiosity, the lanterns highlighted not the finery of the colorful silks that lined the walls nor the vast array of elegant weaponry (weaponry that a trained eye like Sasuke's could tell had never been used, but would be potent in battle all the same), but the ornate table and the girl seated behind it.

Hyuuga Hinata, Sasuke realized as he stepped further and further into the room, was barely a woman.

She was perhaps no younger than him, but it was clear that her adolescence stretched much further than his own ever could have. She had a sweet face. Not beautiful, but the clothing, Sasuke supposed, was supposed to make up for that. She wore a colorful kimono, and fresh lilies in her dark hair. Her was skin so pale, her frame so petite (nearly consumed by all that cloth), that she could have been a doll.

When she moved to bow in greeting, the whole thing fell apart. She was awkward in the kimono, awkward in her own skin. She nearly hit her forehead against the table in her own temerity.

"I'm pleased to meet you," she muttered, words slow to form. Her voice was too soft. Her gaze never lifted to meet his.

Sasuke sat down across from her and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he waited for her to pour him a cup of tea, and when she had, he lifted his chopsticks.

"Itadakimasu," he said, and began to eat.

When he finally looked up, Hinata was meekly shoving a thin piece of folded paper beneath one of her plates, her expression solemn, her eyes angled toward the table. Sasuke didn't have a thing to say, so he said nothing.

But he had to do this.

After the strained, uncomfortable dinner during which little talking took place, Sasuke was led to yet another room, where he was told to wait for a meeting with the clan head, Hyuuga Hiashi. This room was also reinforced with wood paneling, and Sasuke waited for a long time before the door slid open.

The soft shuffle of wood against wood drew Sasuke's attention from his thoughts, and his eyes lifted only to be affronted by their own reflection in the cool gaze of a young man roughly his own age. Sasuke blinked rapidly, body instinctively trying to dispel the illusion of himself caught in that mirrored stare, for it was strange and uncomfortable and thoroughly alien to him.

In those next moments as awareness hit, Sasuke was aware of several things. First, the careless collision of the other boy's shoulder with his own—not violent, but uncaring and unrepentant—second, the way those eyes disappeared behind dark lashes, pale moons shielded by pale curtains. Third was the symbol, brushed as if with blood onto the skin of the boy's smooth forehead as he walked away, glancing back as if on a whim.

He bristled, was about to respond, was about to snarl, _Do you realize—_

And then a voice said from within, "Uchiha Sasuke?"

Sasuke drug one hand over his face and forced the sudden tension that had gripped him out of his shoulders. His eyes, oddly glued to that retreating form (though seemingly registering nothing but the swish of cloth, the flutter of long, dark hair), swept into the interiors of the room. He could see nothing in that darkness.

"Come in," that same voice commanded.

As he stood by the door, before he closed it, Sasuke looked back down that hallway. It was eerily quiet and still, no sign of ever having been used.

He thought he saw a ghost of movement, but then there was nothing.

---  
**Author's Notes:** Um, well…that turned out to be quite a bit longer than I'd originally intended. _Hopefully_ I didn't lose anyone—my rhetoric professor recently told me that I love words _too_ much, and therefore I apologize if anyone found themselves slipping through the cracks; I tried to tone it down as much as possible. A few notes:

1) The time period this fic is set in may be recognizable to you, but some things will obviously not fit, thus the stamp of AU. I'm taking quite a few liberties here; if anything notable comes up I'll be sure to comment on it.  
2) The inspiration for Neji's manji comes from Kidinair's beautiful illustration of Neji on LJ which is fabulous and inspiring and many other things that I simply can't describe. Go enjoy her artwork, now!

Feedback is appreciated, as always! 


	2. Chapter 2

**Title;** Cranes by Night  
_**Chapter 2**_  
**Rated;** PG [this chapter  
**Summary;** Nestled between mountains, myths, and spirits is the house of Hyuuga—and Uchiha Sasuke, who has just been promised to its heir. Yet as the designs of men ebb and flow, Fate abides in an unalterable, ceaseless current unaffected by the desires of men.  
**Author's Note;** AU, SasuNejiSasu. For Laur's (late) birthday and probably Christmas as well. Further comments at the end. 

---  
Karou tosen.  
_A winter fan for summer heat._  
- Japanese Proverb  
---

When Sasuke came into the dark room that belonged to the Hyuuga clan head, it was to find that the man was indeed seated in the dark save for a small white flamed candle that burned brightly on the table that he was seated behind. On the surface in front of him was a scroll lined with tiny characters too small for Sasuke to read at his initial distance, and even as he got closer, the glow from the candle was not quite bright enough to make them out without more strain than he was willing to exhibit in front of this stranger.

Hyuuga Hiashi was almost like a statue in the flickering light. His stillness was hardly alive, and the white light from the candle gave an even more ghostly appearance to his already pale face. It was a face lined only at the mouth. The rest of the Hyuuga's continence was serenely absent of blemish or wrinkle, and it was almost unnaturally pale. Wan.

Sasuke didn't like the look of him. There was no happy medium in his expression, no sensation of understanding in that hard gaze. Only the cool presence of a vast, searching intelligence that made no concession for fault, or desire, or need.

"Please forgive my nephew's impoliteness. He has no manners," Hiashi said when Sasuke had stepped close enough to hear his voice. It was oddly willowy, but the movements of speech sent firm lines and shadows down Hiashi's face—the voice was misleading. This man couldn't bend a centimeter.

"I see," Sasuke responded, his own voice tight.

"He offended you." Hiashi raised an eyebrow, and lifted a small cup to his lips that Sasuke hadn't noticed. He smelled sake. "He will need to be punished then—please, sit down."

There was a pillow in front of the table, but Sasuke did not slip into the familiar seiza position atop it, as his back was already to the door. Sitting down would put him at a greater disadvantage should the situation take a turn—it was a cardinal rule in any soldier's arsenal. Such a lack of trust on Sasuke's part was incredibly rude, and the fact that he understood that and was shameless in the face of it seemed to register on the Hyuuga clan head's face after a few moments had passed. Even so, his expression hardly changed at the slight.

"Did you find dinner with my daughter to be to your liking?" he asked instead.

"The food was satisfactory," Sasuke said without passion.

Hiashi smiled wanly. "Yes, my daughter is quite unremarkable, but she will make a good wife for you. She understands the ways of our family, at least."

The candle on the table gave an abrupt flicker, as if a draft had come through the room (though Sasuke felt no air—the house was remarkably well sealed from the outside), and for a moment it wasn't clear where Hiashi's eyes were focused. Sasuke's gaze stuck fast, but he said nothing.

"I'm sure you're quite tired from your trip," Hiashi said finally, waving a hand over the candle for a moment until he took a long stick from beside him to light the lamp sitting opposite the candle. "Please rest tonight. Tomorrow I would like you to carry out a small task for me…nothing, I'm sure, that you can't handle. Your father was very specific about his faith in you, but a smart man sees for himself before taking the word of a parent." The corners of Hiashi's mouth twitched up, and in the brighter light, Sasuke watched as the minute change in expression transformed him.

When he did not answer again, Hiashi waved a hand and took up a calligraphy brush, effectively dismissing him. "Hikari will take you back to your room."

After bowing blindly, Sasuke turned his back on the man and retraced the steps he had taken minutes before. _Your father was very specific about his faith in you._ Such a small thing, and it had made his heart climb the length of his throat to lie beating just behind his tongue.

He didn't even register the walk to the door, but when he reached it, Sasuke found that it slid open for him of almost as if by its own accord. Waiting for him outside, her hands folded atop one another, was the girl that had guided him through the house since his arrival.

"I can find my way back on my own," Sasuke said, though some small voice inside suggested that perhaps he couldn't. Not in this house. Not yet.

"Hiashi-sama has asked that I accompany you, Sasuke-san," the girl, Hikari, said. "Sometimes even we get lost in this house at night."

"Che…fine," Sasuke grunted.

As they made their way out of the interior of the house, Sasuke tried to pay attention to each turn they took, each scroll and decoration that marked the walls and turns and crevices. There were several blooming plants, some that crept curiously along the shoji as if conscious; ones with pale blue flowers, ones with white. None ventured out into the hall.

When they had reached the edge of the house—Sasuke could tell only because the light was dimmer here; none shone through the shoji on one side of the hall—he began to recognize the path they'd taken to the room where he'd eaten dinner. He was about to inform Hikari that surely she could leave _now_ when there was a sudden shift of movement so loud that it could be heard even through the wood paneling of the outside of the house. It sounded almost as if a mountain had moved right behind the wall, though it was much less concrete sounding than that. More accurately, it sounded as if a mountain had been tossed through the air, so loud the _woosh_.

"What was that noise?" Sasuke asked his female companion, who looked over her shoulder with an expression that was almost vacant. As if she had not even noticed the noise that Sasuke spoke of.

"I'm not sure what you mean, Sasuke-san," Hikari said, and by that time they had reached his room, and she was kneeling by the door as she had done before, head tilted toward the ground just slightly. Sasuke cast his eyes down the hall, annoyed.

"Nevermind," he said, and slid the door shut abruptly behind him.

That night, after he had bathed and unpacked the minimal possessions he'd brought with him, Sasuke laid in bed listening to the low hum of rain against the roof above. The room was dark, but not black, and through the shoji lining the hall, Sasuke could see the dim silhouettes of undefined figures moving about a long way off. As it grew later and the rain came harder, they began to disperse and nothing moved at all.

When he'd drifted off to sleep, or thought he had, something rumbled its way past the outer doors of his room. Sasuke could hear the swish of rain, the rigid grate of something hard and rough on wood, and then that same rumbling sound that he'd heard earlier. That moving mountain.

This time, there was no one to ask, so Sasuke slipped out of the futon that had been made up for him and padded his way to the covered window, which he unboarded and peered out of and into the rainy night. The darkness was blinding for a moment, and as far as Sasuke could see there were nothing but puddles of water and rain and gray dark marring the even darker landscape. Yet the longer he stared, the more convinced he became that there was something out there.

There was something out there.

He couldn't see it for a moment, but he could see _movement_.

It wasn't well-known that the Uchiha clan had the gift of spectacular eyesight, or that the word "gift" couldn't accurately describe what it was that the Uchiha's eyes did. It wasn't spoken of in the household—it wasn't even mentioned. But from the time an Uchiha child hit puberty to the day he died, there was a _disease_ in the pupils. A red, cloaking disease that gave its bearer the ability to see, the ability to memorize on that sight—but Sasuke had never seen quite like this.

It was as if the darkness slowly began to collapse, etching a rain-shrouded figure behind in the space that remained. It glowed like this house seemed to glow: not with life, but with purpose, yet as far as Sasuke could see, it was doing nothing at all to give truth to that theory. It was just standing out in the rain, back toward Sasuke. A man, or a woman. Standing in the rain.

The rain was falling right through it.

Sasuke leaned on the edge of the open window, felt the cool, almost biting night air as it flexed its fingers over his bare skin. He could almost register the splatter of the heavy raindrops off the ground feet away from the covered veranda, but dreams could be misleading—dreams could tell you anything. His fingertips bit into the wood hard enough to ache with the pressure.

The figure turned, and its face was dry and pearly white, stark against the strings of ebony hair that fell haphazardly in a frame against its rounded, childlike cheeks. There was nothing remarkable about that face aside from the four pronged helix that rested, blood-like on its forehead. And the eyes. Those eyes were as hollow as the sun looked against a blue sky.

Sasuke let out a low, shaky breath as the figure tilted its head slowly to the side, examining him as a curious child might a new guest in its house. Perhaps that was more accurate than it should have been.

Then with a sudden shift of space and time, with a blink into some otherworld, it was on the veranda. And slowly, almost as if it had begun to rain beneath that thick wooden covering, lines of water dripped down the figure's cheeks leaving wet, black tracks on an otherwise clear face. Its feet left wet footprints on the dry wood as it stepped carefully but quite deliberately toward Sasuke.

He stepped back from the window, suddenly quite certain that the creature desired to come inside. It was almost as if his body moved on its own and was observing some kind of nameless courtesy.

And then it was inside and that spell was broken. Sasuke felt every muscle in his body tense as the ghostly presence tiptoed through his room, its vacant, empty eyes on him every step of the way.

"What are you?" he demanded, finding his tongue as the figure passed his futon—and then it turned, and Sasuke was chilled to the bone with that new tilt of its head. Somehow, it came of no surprise when it was in front of him, looking up at him, twisting its androgynous features into a tight, intense expression that made each hair on Sasuke's body rise and prickle as if in some kind of ancient, latent defense that had been waiting all this time to rear and fight.

It was too close, centimeters too close. Sasuke could feel wet and cold radiating from the snow white skin, emptiness and hatred and loneliness emanating from its hollow eyes.

He flinched, a full-body recoil that nearly turned into a shudder, a compulsion so great that it almost forced him to step back. But he would not throw himself against the wall as part of him wished to do. Instead he swallowed. Took another shuddering breath as the figure seemed to stare right into him, eyes flaying each thought and emotion wide open for its own examination until Sasuke was but a child again, facing his old fears of monsters in the night.

"Mouth shut, eyes open," came the dry but vivid voice from somewhere in the room. It was like a wind shuddering through an old, empty house. Impossible to pinpoint and lonely. Incredibly, achingly lonely in the way that nothing but intense hatred could compare.

Then he woke up.

Sasuke was clenching the blankets so tightly and sweating so profusely that he thought for a moment that he had taken to fever and this entire experience had been a dream. But as he regained his senses and looked around, it was not to find the familiar room that he had spent his childhood in, but instead the crisp white ricepaper walls of the house of Hyuuga.

And on the floor was a set of fading waterlogged footprints that disappeared before reaching the door and catalogued his first foray into the mystery of the family that had come to harbor him.

Breakfast was a quiet, sparse affair. Sasuke did not dine with his bride-to-be nor anyone of her family, but instead was served his food in his room, alone—which was really the last place he wanted to be.

There was no sign of his visitor of the night before, however, only the puddles left from the rainstorm and an odd, shell-like pattern on one of the supports lining the veranda, which Sasuke noticed when he went outside to do his morning katas. He studied the marking for a long time, knowing that despite looking fresh, it could have been made with a weapon weeks before. Not a weapon of any kind Sasuke had ever seen, but it was a minor thought as he worked through his routine. The rest of his attention was focused inward.

Hikari came for him after he'd cleaned up and dressed, her timing nearly perfect in that respect. It was only then that Sasuke remembered his conversation with Hiashi the night before, and the task he was to complete for the Hyuuga clan head, whatever that may be.

After attempting to get more information from his Hyuuga escort—though he was beginning to think of her more as a guard, now—and failing, Sasuke resolved himself to his irritation. He had very little experience in these matters, but he was fairly certain that as a guest and match for the clan's heir, he should be treated more intimately. Held, perhaps, in higher esteem and without such a carefully distant hand. He was, after all, an Uchiha—that, at least, spoke for something.

Hikari's silence gave Sasuke an opportunity to further observe the place he'd been promised to. In the daylight, the interior of the Hyuuga house shone much more brightly, and they actually passed some of the other clan members, each of which carefully watched Sasuke only once he'd walked by. He took his time studying each face, his expression tight and unforgiving, but none wore the insignia on their foreheads that Sasuke had seen the night before.

Hyuuga Hiashi, too, looked different with natural light shining upon him. The lines of his face were no less deep, the structure of his jaw was no less hard, but at least now, he looked human. Like a man who could take ill or grow old, and that fact was oddly comforting to Sasuke.

When they met again, it was in the clan's dojo, which was so similar to the ones in the Uchiha District that it could have been the other side of Konoha that Sasuke had stepped into. But outside each open window lay nothing but jutting mountains and the cool, remorseless paths that led away from this ancient fortress.

"It's reassuring to see you well and rested this morning, Sasuke," Hiashi said, greeting Sasuke at the center of the dojo. They both bowed, Sasuke at an angle so shallow he almost thought he could feel the warm hand of his mother against the back of his neck, pressing him down, whispering _Manners_. He straightened, hiding a wince.

"These are the clan elders and my youngest," Hiashi said in the wake of Sasuke's silence, one pale hand slipping out of his robe to slowly gesture to the South wall where a line of five men and one woman sat, each as still as carved stone. Sasuke found each of them aged and ordinary, only noteworthy in the way they held themselves. The girl seated beside the woman had the look of a vulture—if a vulture could have been fresh-faced or beautiful. "They've come to see you fight."

Sasuke's blood rushed and he whipped his head back around until his eyes cut into the Hyuuga clan head's. "And who will I be fighting?" he demanded, voice strung so tight it almost ached in the roots of his teeth.

Hiashi merely regarded him calmly and mildly, his oddly omnipresent gaze focusing for a moment behind Sasuke, where the woman had leaned over to speak in a not so hushed tone to her young companion: _It will take awhile to calm the flame_.

"Neji," Hiashi said, voice lifted not in answer to Sasuke's question, but in a way that summoned. It was almost the way a novice falconer called a kite—practiced and smooth and expectant, but not at all with any respect for the bird.

A door behind Hiashi slid open and out came Hinata, who scurried her way around the back wall until she had reached the center the room's Eastern side, where she clumsily sat herself, folded her arms in her lap, and fixed her eyes on the floor. Hiashi looked so disapproving that Sasuke thought for a moment that perhaps Hinata had come out naked and he just hadn't noticed.

He hadn't though—at least not the arrival of the boy that Hiashi had called initially. When Sasuke looked away from Hinata, it was to find him standing a few meters from the door, almost as if he had been standing there all along, or had materialized in some great act of sorcery.

Sasuke was not at all surprised to find that it was the boy from the night before. The one who had bumped and arrested him in the same instant. Life seemed far too coincidental in this house to miss out on such an opportunity.

The Uchiha felt his features immediately twist into a scowl before tightening into a sneer as he shifted his position to a wider stance, already looking as if he was willing to fight. "Tch…your nephew, Hyuuga-san? And I'm to be his punishment?"

There was a slow wash of chuckling from behind him, and Sasuke didn't have to turn to see each elder's mouth peeking upward in an amused smile. Every jeer seemed to reflect off the boy's—Neji's—smooth white continence and glassy, mirror eyes, wrought somehow in an expression that was the complete opposite of joy, or mirth, or amusement. Hiashi was the only one that didn't make a sound, and out of the corner of his eye, Sasuke saw Hinata's shoulders convulse in a heavy breath or sob.

"You needn't worry yourself over that matter at this point. We just want to see what you are capable of," Hiashi answered finally. "Please, indulge us." It wasn't really a request.

"Fine," Sasuke replied, eyes not on Hiashi's already retreating form, but on the boy, who seemed as if he had been quite ignoring the situation in general, Sasuke most of all.

Sasuke stripped off his shirt because it was restrictive and he had not entertained the possibility of being taken directly to a sparring match. The pants he wore were of a lighter material which wouldn't obstruct him too much, and despite the cold that was washing in from the open windows, Sasuke felt much more relaxed falling into a fighting stance than he'd expected.

Neji was much less deliberate about his actions. He was already dressed for the occasion in a thin looking gray garment that covered his arms and legs completely, the jacket of which tied neatly at his waist. His long, brown hair had been pulled up and into a ponytail leaving ample view of his forehead, that symbol, and the refined, almost delicate features of his face.

There was a grayish pallor to Neji's skin that Sasuke hadn't noticed the night before, though; for all his youth and beauty—and impertinence—it seemed that perhaps this Hyuuga was not healthy.

"Feel free to take your time, Hyuuga," Sasuke said, voice not quite as kind as his words.

And then without even slipping into a stance, Neji began.

The Hyuuga's movements were so fluid, so shockingly graceful that Sasuke almost didn't register them at first. It was only after Neji's fingers had struck a blow to his upper arm (forearm too shocked to block) that Sasuke slipped out of his reverie, only after he had barely caught Neji's wrist as those fingers made a pass at his throat that he realized he couldn't predict the Hyuuga's movements because _Neji had no tells_.

A second moved, slow as an hour as Neji whipped his wrist out of Sasuke's grip.

In the interim, their eyes connected, Neji's cool gaze brimming with razor-sharp precision of thought so clear that Sasuke could almost read the intent as if it were written on a page. It was apparent in those seconds that Sasuke would never be this boy's true opponent, not in this fight nor any other—and that was almost as jarring as the thrust issued to his chest in the next moment.

Thrown flat against his back, Sasuke clenched his eyes tightly shut as he skidded along the tatami. The skin of his back burning, he thrust himself up on his forearms and met that gaze again.

If Neji was the picture of complete calm, Sasuke knew he must look the opposite; he could feel his blood rushing, his anger building—even here, even by this boy whom he'd barely exchanged words with, he was not being taken seriously. His eyes narrowed as the Hyuuga before him straightened.

The light that shone in from the open windows outlined Neji's body, hurting Sasuke's eyes as he struggled with his anger and breathing—with the seconds that ticked by slowly but seemed so much more debilitating the longer he remained on the ground.

Above him, Neji didn't look expectant or bored—instead he was shaking. His frame was shuddering within the outline of the light, but it was so barely visible, so minute that Sasuke wasn't sure why he could see it at all. No one else seemed to notice. Neji seemed only to hold the intensity of his clan, their stares on his shoulders.

And then he shifted, just a little, and Sasuke thought he knew that was going to happen.

Throwing himself up into a crouch, Sasuke balanced his weight against his knees for a moment, leaning, observing. He had thrown himself into battle with his father readily, and while his impetuousness had always served him well when facing any other opponent, it had cost him in that particular battle. Brought him down. If he learned nothing at all, Sasuke always learned from his mistakes.

As if sensing this new scrutiny, Neji began to move. He stepped lightly, his eyes still as a forest full of snow and alive as a tiger's.

Just as Neji stepped into Sasuke's blind spot, the Uchiha slipped into a seamless arc, one leg darting out to catch his opponent where he knew the ankle would be. When Neji jumped, as Sasuke expected he would, he was met with a rally of side-arm thrusts, each of which was matched with a grace so natural that it transcended any possibility of learning. This was inborn, and as much as Sasuke hated it (had come to _hate_ this boy, in these few short minutes), he couldn't help but admire it. Admire and scorn at equal length.

While they traded blows, Sasuke was aware of only two things: this Hyuuga was perhaps faster than him, and Neji was holding himself back. No—was being held back. Sasuke could feel it in the way the Hyuuga moved, how his fingers blitzed their careful characters all about Sasuke's body almost too quick for him to reach the next and the next and the next block—It wasn't effortless, no, that much was clear. A dozen beads of sweat had gathered on the Hyuuga's smooth brow, exhausted before exhaustion should have hit. And still Neji was quicker.

But those muscles were used to more. They were used to streamline. Sasuke could see it in the way Neji moved, in the almost irritated look in his eyes. Such emotions were directed inward.

And then Sasuke became aware of something else.

As Neji shot a blow over his shoulder, centimeters from his face, Sasuke watched him retract and move again—but this time, Neji hadn't done it yet. His arm was still a straight line next to Sasuke's face, a breeze from the window wafting through the light material. It was as if he was seeing into another world, into a world of Neji's intention rather than his action. And as the Hyuuga pulled back to flip into an elegant angle that should have been unnatural, even impossible, Sasuke saw the edge of Neji's foot fly out from the left and catch him in the jaw…just before it happened.

He dodged.

He dodged so easily, in fact, that he almost overcompensated, expecting a blow where there was none. Recovery was easy enough—Sasuke merely pulled himself upright and fell back into his natural fighting stance, one arm extended to Neji in invitation. _Bring your worst_ was whispered in the curve of his lips.

Sweat glistened on the edges of Neji's collarbones; there was no color in his face, none in his lips. But he didn't hesitate when he went for Sasuke next. In those seconds that Neji closed the space between them, movements struggling for poise, for the calm that his body had unduly forsaken, Sasuke could see Neji's end. As he pulled into the block that would begin that end, slipped into the complicated feat that would finish it, a voice stoppered the thick hanging silence that was strung about the room and halted all that had been set into motion:

"That's enough."

Sasuke was too disciplined to be unable to pull out of what he'd begun, but it was still awkward and still incredibly vicious to his muscles. Every joint screamed as he redirected his whole lower body midair and sent his knees crashing into the tatami instead of sending his shins into Neji's head or back. He landed gracefully enough for the circumstances, but it was with no sense of dignity that Sasuke lifted his head to snarl at Hyuuga Hiashi, only true, heartened indignation.

"Very good," Hiashi said, though he hardly sounded as if he were invested in that decree. "We are all duly impressed."

Sasuke seethed and stood. This was not how he wanted it to end—even that small sense of triumph he'd experienced was tainted by the fact that said triumph was at the expense of someone who was currently in no condition to continue fighting.

Glancing at Neji now, Sasuke never would have guessed that to be the case. He was still unnaturally pale, still with that sickly sheen of sweat (quite different from Sasuke's own), but with the way he was holding himself, it was hard to notice any of that. Head tilted slightly up, shoulders back, Neji hardly looked as if he had engaged in any strenuous activity at all. Within moments he even had his breathing under control.

Hiashi turned to his nephew. "You look as if you could haunt something. Get cleaned up."

Looking as if he were about to protest, Neji opened his mouth only to be cut off by a new voice. "Hiashi…can't you see that the boy is perfectly fine? Not drooping in the slightest, are you….Neji-kun?" There was a curious pause as the woman from the group of those that had been watching approached, her fingers perched precariously in a steeple against her mouth. She observed Neji intently for a few moments before she looked up at Hiashi.

"Setsuna-sama," Hiashi greeted, eyes moving distractedly over her shoulder. "If you would excuse us. Sasuke—"

"No, no, Hiashi, I want a moment to look at this boy who is marrying my niece. Go along. The others will be waiting for you—tell them that I won't be long. You stay, Neji," the woman said as Neji offered a bow, looking almost stricken. "Go, Hiashi! Hinata, you wait just outside, dear, that's right…"

Soon the room was cleared and Sasuke was left standing with this ancient woman—most certainly a great-aunt of the house—and Neji, who looked as if he could stand being here less and less as the seconds progressed.

Sasuke soon understood why, as Setsuna began to circle them both, her gaze unparticular. She could have been gazing at a slab of meat or the finest oxen in the land. In any case, that gaze made it clear that this woman considered them both—meat and oxen—to be of like kind.

After she made a couple of passes, Sasuke pulled a hand through his hair and gathered his shirt, which was resting near the edge of the dojo where it had fallen. When he returned, Setsuna (if she were to be called so) was angling Neji's face this way and that, fingernails like claws digging into his jaw line as if she handled something other than a human being.

"Ah, well…" she said with a sigh, releasing Neji's face as Sasuke approached. The trailing thought filled up the silence. _It would have been foolish to ask more of you._ Sasuke knew that silence well.

Instead of looking shamed, Neji merely looked angry. Hateful. His eyes blazed as Setsuna turned to Sasuke, ignorant of those white orbs that never left her face.

Sasuke was jerked away from his thoughts when his own jaw was apprehended, though much more gently than it seemed Neji's had been. Up close, Sasuke could see that the pieces of Setsuna's face looked as if they might, at one time, have belonged to the Hyuuga line. She may once have been an elegant woman, but age had taken its toll on her, leaving her with nothing but the clear, piercing white of the Hyuuga gaze. Even that looked yellowed and overdrawn.

"Seems you'll do fine, Uchiha," she said. Her gaze flickered to the necklace that Sasuke still wore, and under her eyes it seemed to flare with heat and life. Setsuna chuckled, and it was not a nice sound. "Best to keep all that rogue blood in the family." She patted his cheek.

Then, as if she were muscling her way between the two of them (though the space was comparable in size to a small river), the elderly woman walked to the door and slid it open, her eyes focusing on something outside for a moment before she turned back to the two of them.

"Neji-kun," she said sweetly, the tone of voice gilded, "why don't you take Hinata and her fiancée to the river? It's time Sasuke-san saw the town."

"Yes, Setsuna-sama," Neji said, voice perfectly blank. Setsuna smiled, and only then Sasuke saw that it was fake.

"Good. Get cleaned up first; you're a representative of this house. Hinata will meet you by the front gate." She turned and shut the door behind her, leaving Sasuke standing with Neji in the center of the room.

Sasuke turned to find Neji staring at him, those intense white eyes calm and flat. It was almost unnerving, but the Uchiha merely stared back, his expression carefully pulling into a well-designed sneer.

"What are you looking at?" he hissed, still caged by the aftereffects of his anger. The flames rolled and rumbled when the Hyuuga stepped forward, and Sasuke felt something thick and sinuous wind its way down his spine as Neji regarded him with a tilted head.

"Your eyes," he answered, and reached out to slip two fingers beneath the head of the magatama strung around Sasuke's neck. A cool wash of sensation worked its way over the Uchiha's bare skin from that point of contact, and when the other boy dropped the onyx carving back to its original resting place, the shock of heat barely registered next to what his skin had already experienced.

Neji pulled back and walked away. Sasuke didn't find himself concerned with where.

_Your eyes…_

He needed a mirror.

---  
**Author's Notes;**  
One—Yuurei, Sasuke's "ghost," are spirits of wrath. Sasuke's ghost was, more specifically, a goryo—you'll be seeing more of her in the future.

Two—Expect more recognizable characters in the next chapter, as well as more Hinata! She has a role to play yet.

Three—I'm kind of drunk. Happy New Year!

Four—Reviews are loved and appreciated, especially with feedback on the fight scene which, again, is one of the harder points for me. Knowing what you liked and didn't is always a plus!


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